Thread 36 Starmer - Triggered by ads and Da iawn, Caerffili.

[DuncinToffee]

Pull up a chair for some friendly chit chat about politics, cats, dogs and much more

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Previous thread

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/_chat/5427394-thread-35-starmer-old-and-smelling-of-roses?page=40&reply=148165782

Thought some of you would find this interesting. It’s bloodchilling.

https://www.thenerve.news/p/guilty-feminist-deborah-frrances-white-american-christian-right-uk-farage-road-to-gilead

It is interesting to me as my family background involved an escape from evangelism and some it’s more oppressive ideas. It radically changed our family from a life of solid conservative values into liberals from the 1960s onwards. We never looked back! Philip Larkin had it right; like free bloody birds…

The US voting population is around a third evangelical Christian. They mostly vote for Trump. I don’t think we in the UK understand the power of the US evangelical movement. Its influence is massive. You will see even in geopolitics over Gaza.

High Windows (1974, copyright Philip Larkin)

When I see a couple of kids
And guess he’s fucking her and she’s

Taking pills or wearing a diaphragm,

I know this is paradise

Everyone old has dreamed of all their lives—

Bonds and gestures pushed to one side
Like an outdated combine harvester,
And everyone young going down the long slide

To happiness, endlessly. I wonder if

Anyone looked at me, forty years back,

And thought, That’ll be the life;
No God any more, or sweating in the dark

About hell and that, or having to hide
What you think of the priest. He
And his lot will all go down the long slide
Like free bloody birds. And immediately

Rather than words comes the thought of high windows:

The sun-comprehending glass,
And beyond it, the deep blue air, that shows
Nothing, and is nowhere, and is endless.

Frightening @BIossomtoes something that struck me very much when I heard it, is that the “Founding Fathers” were mainly from sects such as the Puritans with very extreme views on morality and combined with the brutality shown towards the Native Americans, I think those world views to a degree still inform some sections of American society along with the long shadow of slavery and segregation.

Recently, I have seen an increase in posts on social media from “Trad Wives” talking about modest dress and things that their husbands will not allow. We are not so many years on in this country from women being denied rights once they were married and access to financial resources in their own right.

My family is form Puritan stock. We all hung about in the NE and many Puritans (after inauspicious beginnings) went on to be some of the prominent anti slavery campaigners. It's the ones who headed south and midwest you need to worry about...

Just to restore my ancestors' reputation!

ETA - a lot of the tradwives thing comes out of Mormonism and some from the presbyterian Scots/German turned Evangelicals. Largely not from puritan generations of Americans.

Wait... Russell Jones has a new book out???!

He’s got a novel, too @Piggywaspushed . It’s called Baby’s Breath and is quite a good read if you like crime/thriller type stuff.

Really??

Scurrying off to Amazon as we speak!

No offence intended to your ancestors @Piggywaspushed !

That's OK. We almost certainly did Many Bad Things.

I am sure that would be the case for many of us if we delved too deeply. I know of two families where living relatives wouldn’t discuss someone who had been sent to prison and the person doing the family tree research decided to leave it be.

And this is why these threads are great.

Mine definitely did too. My great grandparents had a colonial style plantation in Indonesia.

I remember the day I answered a knock on the door to a couple of religious types in black suits. They were American and I'm pretty sure they were Mormons.

I was stood barefoot as I hate wearing shoes, in the last trimester of pregnancy with a small child in front of each leg (14 months between my oldest 2 and I had 3 under 5).

They opened with the line "We've come to talk about family values". My response was "A bit late for that I think".

We get a lot of them round here and they've never given me a line like that. It wouldn't go well - I'm a 'would have been divorced if he hadn't died' parent of three, two mine, one fostered, all some kind of LGBT or a mix thereof, all loved. Also very atheist. My family values are incredibly strong and not at all conservatively Christian.

We only get Jehova witnesses, the are friendly enough and not pushy.

I had one of those during my year out. Very nice man, I invited him in and we chatted for about an hour. He was actually very respectful of my beliefs (but didn't seem to understand why I'm not worried about death and not having an afterlife).

🤣

I lived in a student house with a girl who had left the JW's. She was very messed up and her family just couldn't leave her alone. Luckily there were no mobiles phones or SM then.

We had to kick out a few of her 'boyfriends'

I’m loosely religious.

ds went to school with a lovely boy who’s dad was a vicar. Being a LP to a disabled child I took up their offer to attend their church (in a scout hit and all very relaxed). It helped me feel and have a community around me.

All was going well until the day the vicar asked “is there any questions?”.

Ds 🙋‍♂️ he wanted to know why the but kept saying God created the world when we all knew the dinosaurs were here before us 🤦🏼‍♀️

We stopped going after that 😂😂

😂those pesky dinosaurs again

Hi all - been away to Krakow - interrupting the current flow here - just got back to find that the ukip mass deportation tour which has the audacity to come to my city is actually allowed to March on the asylum hotel but police have stopped the anti racism counter protest going there with a section 14 notice, or even meeting where it is leafleted to meet - beyond angry.
I never heard of such an atrocious or ridiculous thing as this tour anyway but it’s all getting worse now.

What tour is that MsJinks? Who is organising it?

@MsJinks that’s awful 😮

It’s organised by Nick Tenconi, UKIP leader - it’s actually called The Mass Deportation Tour. He takes his small tribe and dog whistles others at different cities and gives speeches about it being a ‘holy war’, he wants a ‘crusade’ and refers to the Bible though not sure he either read it or understood it!
He’s calling at the asylum hotel here, and I think he likes to include this on his tour to point out those who he’d like to start deporting. the counter protest isn’t allowed there now which I am angry about and think it’s appalling that he is.
I still find that it’s called a named tour unbelievable! I’m very excited I got tickets for Bon Jovi’s Forever tour next year - yay! So this is not within my understanding of a named ‘tour’ at all!